Pueblo Drive-In
131 Peak Place,
Tesuque,
NM
87506
131 Peak Place,
Tesuque,
NM
87506
1 person
favorited this theater
The first drive-in in the Santa Fe area was on the Taos highway 6½ miles north of town, just outside Tesuque. It was opened on June 9, 1950 with John Wayne in “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. It was operated by Salmon & Greer and had cost $100,000 to construct.
The Pueblo Drive-In had a 50-foot screen, in-car speakers, and a concessions bar. By 1952 it was operated by Gibraltar Enterprises.
Its owners, Greer Enterprises, built a replacement, also called the Pueblo Drive-In, on Cerrillos Road in Santa Fe in May 1958 (which has its own page on Cinema Treasures).
Only faint echos of the ramps remain today.
Contributed by
Michael Kilgore
Want to be emailed when a new comment is posted about this theater?
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater.
Recent comments (view all 3 comments)
The Pueblo Drive-In that opened in June 1950 was on Native American land known as Tesuque, well north of downtown Santa Fe. Greer Enterprises essentially moved it to 3251 Cerrillos Road in May 1958, based on an April 13, 1958 note in The Santa Fe New Mexican: “The new location will provide room for 600 cars, compared with 400 in the old location”.
The story of the original Pueblo began in the Aug. 20, 1949 issue of BoxOffice:
“SANTA FE – E. John Greer, president of Salmon & Greer, Inc., owner of the Lensic, Alley, Arco and El Paseo theatres here, says Santa Fe will have a new 400-car drive-in, located on the Taos highway 6½ miles north of town, just outside Tesuque.
Arrangements were made to build on Indian land with the U.S. Indian agency, Greer said. Plans call for a playground for children with slides, wings, ponies and a miniature train to be used just before the first of two nightly shows.
The drive-in will be equipped with in-car speakers, concessions bar, moonlight lighting, surfaced ramps and a 50-foot screen. Construction will start immediately and the drive-in will serve Santa Fe, Los Alamos, Tesuque, Espanola and the Espanola valley."
A Feb. 22, 1950 note in The Santa Fe New Mexican said that John H. Veale of Las Cruces was “nearing completion of a drive-in theater for the Salmon and Greer firm at Tesuque”.
The New Mexican wrote on May 21, 1950 that “Quincy Tahoma will have a series of his paintings hung permanently is a candy store connected with the Pueblo Drive-In theater at Tesuque.”
A June 26, 1950 editorial in the New Mexican wrote, “The Pueblo at Tesuque, the community’s first drive-in, is a beautiful structure, approved by even the nature boys of Pojoaque and Nambe. A second drive-in, the Yucca on Cerrillos road, is scheduled to open in a few days equally handsome and well equipped.”
A 1952 aerial shows a drive-in at the Google Maps address of 131 Peak Pl, Santa Fe, NM 87506, though it’s well outside the Santa Fe city limits and about a mile northwest of Tesuque’s boundary.
Don’t you hate it when the microfilmers use bound newspapers?
Found on Newspaperarchive.com
Tesuque’s version of the Pueblo showed its final movies “The Creature Walks Among Us” and “The Last Hunt” on Saturday, Sept. 28, 1957. Its ad concluded, “The Pueblo will close Sat. nite for the season. Thank you for your patronage and we hope to see you next year.”
Santa Fe New Mexican, April 13, 1958: “Greer Enterprises now is in the process of building a “new home” for the Pueblo Drive-In in a more convenient location, and at the same time is expanding facilities at the movie theater. Site of the Pueblo is being switched from the end of Tesuque Drive to Cerrillos Road"
All that is left are the ramps along with the foundation of the projector booth/concession stand and screen. It seems that they did not convert to widescreen before the drive-in closed.
Even the entrance/exit roads are long gone.